Stitch and upper cleaning machine



E. ERICKSON. STITCH AND UPPER CLEANING MACHINE.

1,402,752. FPLIcATwN FILED MAY 11, 191's. ted Jam-10 1922.

3 SHEETSSHEET l.

E. ERICKSON.

STITCH AND UPPER CLEANING MACHINE.

APPLICATION FILED MAYH,1918.

Patented Jan. 10, 1922.

'3 swans-sear 2.

E. ERICKSON.

. STITCH AND UPPER CLEANING MACHINE.

APPLICATION FILED MAY 11, I9l8.

1,402,752, Patented Jan. 10, 1922.

3 SHEETS-SHEET 3.

UNITED STATES nnwann nnrcxson, orient/Emir, MASSACHUSETTS, assrsnoa T 0 n vr rnn srron.

MACHINERY New JERSEY.

oonroaa'rron, or rarniasolv, New, JERSEY, A ooaronnrron' on STITCH AND UEEE- CLEANING ll/IACHILIE.

To all whom it may concern: 1

Be it known that I, EDWARD ERICKSON, a citizen of. the United, States, residing at Beverly, in the county of Essex and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain Iniprovements in Stitch and Upper Cleaning Machines, of which the following description, in connection with the accol'npanying drawings, is a specification, like reference characters on the drawings indicating like parts in the several figure I This invention, among other uses, is espe cially applicable to shoe finishing machinery. The invention will be described with particular reference to a machine of the type known to the trade as a stitch and upper cleaning machine, although it is not intended to limit the invention thereby.

' A general object of the invention is to providean improved machine of this class by means of which the quality of work may be improvedand the'speed of operation increased.

' After a shoe has been completed and before it is ready for packing, it is necessary to remove stains and surface dirt from the uppers and to brush out dirt and superfluous wax which may have been lodged. in the rand crease. In cleaning the-uppers, the practice has been to moisten them by application to a moistened brush or wet sponge and then to apply the shoes to a soft cleanbrush usually constructed of clothand sometimes termed a yarn brush. I If, however, the moistening brush and cleaning brush are mountedupon the same shaft, it is impossible to drive this shaft at a speed which will be suitable for both brushes for if the speed is great enough. to suit the requirements of the cloth brush, then itewill be so great that water will be thrown from the moisteningbrush, and if the speedis adapted for moistening, it will not be suf- -fic1ently great for the proper operation of;

the cleaning brush.

Various arrangements have been proposed to overcome? this difficulty and machines have been constructed in which two parallel shafts were employed and others inwhich the shafts were telescopically arranged. In

asmuch 'as it is necessary to change the brushes frequently, and especially thejcleaning brush, such machines have usually been des gned Wl e too s erhan g th Specification of Letters Patent.

' a en ed. Jan-1.01 2

Application filed May 11, 1918 Serial No. 233,875.

so that working faces of the two tools will be substantially in alinement, withthe tools on the near opposing ends of the shafts and closely adjacent to one another. This enables the operator to decreas'ethetime required for moving the work from one tool to the other and permits the two shafts to be driven at the desired speeds' from the .main shaft and work canbe simultaneously performed by both tools on. different portions of the articles. It will be obvious,

however, that such an arrangement, although desirable for the reasons pointed out, entails an additional difficulty whenit becomes necessary to remove or change one of the brushes.

An important feature of the lnventlon relates to an arrangement allowing displacement of one of the shafts with respect to the other so that'either tool may be readily removed. In the illustrated arrangement, one

of the shafts is mounted upon an adjustablebracket whichis capable ofmovement about a center located at the side of the tool shaft toward the driving shaft, thus maintaining the driving belt in undisturbed position and allowing the removal of either brush without reference to the space between the opposing ends of the shafts. This feature involves the additional. advantage that the working peripheral faces of the two tools may be brought into alinement whenever,

. because ofthe design of the tools or because of the uneven wearing away of the tools, they are of difierent diameters. r

, Another feature of. the inventionrelates to the. arrangement of the stitch cleaning brush, which is commonly a short stiff bristled brush and is preferably driven at a much higher speed than either of the other operating tools, to enable facile transferance of work thereto from the other tools and vice-versa." In the preferred arrangement, thisbrush is mounted upon a separate shaft which. is angular-1y related to the shafts spo h ch. the e her, we pe ati t ql the tension of the driving belt and is of material importance from standpoint.

Further features of the invention will appear from a consideration of the following the operators specification, describing the preferred embodiment of the invention, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which,-

Fig. l is a front elevation with portions of the casings broken away; 7

Fig. 2 is a vertical section taken on the line 2-2 of Fig. 1 and looking at the right hand end of the machine; 7

Fig; 3 is a plan view of the machine;-

Fig; 4 is a front elevation of the main driving shaft showing the belt shifter somewhat more in detail; and

Fig. 5 is a detail view taken on the section line 55 of Fig. 2.

The parts of the machine are supported by a suitable standard 10 carryingnear its base a main driving shaft 12 supported in suitable bearings and provided at its right hand end with fast and loose pulleys 14 and 16, and along its length with driving pulleys 18, 20 and 22. A. hand lever 2a in convenient position at the frontof the machine is suitably connected to a belt shifter 26 which, for the sake of illustration, is shown as of the type shown and described in Letters Patent of the United States No. 1,136,116,

granted April 20, 1915, upon an application of F. M. Furber.

Atthe upper end of the standard 10 there is provided a casing 30 havingahinged cover 32enclosing the operating tools and an outlet 33 to allow connection to an eX- haust system if desired. This casing is extended in a bracket 34: to provide bearings for a'shaft 36 supporting a cleaningtool 38 which will preferably be in the form of a' cloth or a yarn brush. This may be retained upon the shaft in any suitablefashion for example, by means of a memberAeOJ Mounted at the-right side-of the casing 30 is, an adjustable bracket 42, best shown in Figsi 1 and 2, whi h provides bearings for a shaft 4 4; supporting: at its inner. end rnois ening brush 46 which is retained upon its shaft in s1milar fashion. j

Water is applied to this brush froma'tank 48through a wick 5O bearing against the periphery of.

the brush.- The tank and its wick are adustable' in a horizontal plane toward and fawa'y from the brush and may be clamped in "ad ustedposition by means of a thumb-screw This arrangement al- 52. 1 The casing 30 is provided with a curved slot 54 formed as an arc of a circle struck preferably about thejaxis of the driving shaft 12 as a center. Clamping bolts 56'and 58, which are provided with plates 60 and with suitable handles 62 and er for tightening the bolts, co-operate with the overhanging sides of the slot 5% to hold the bracket $2 in adjusted position. A suitable stop may be provided to limit the outward movement of the bracket. This arrangement permits the bracket 42 together with its shaft 44: and the brush 46 to be moved forward to a position such as that indicated by dotted lines in Fig. 2, where its tool Wlll be completely out of alinement with the tool- 38 and will thus permit the rcadyremoval of either of the tools from their respective shafts. Inasmuch as the movement'is about a center on the side of the tool shaft toward the driving shaft and within the loop of the belt, the tension of the belt 66 connecting the pulley 18 with the shaft 44: will not beappreciably altered by such a movement and.

when the bracket has been moved back into the desiredoperative position, the machine is ready for immediate use without further attention. This belt 66, as wellas thelb'elt 2-37 connecting the driving pulley 20 with the shaft 26, is enclosed within casings 68 of well known construction, parts of which are deta hably retainedin position by means of spring clamping devices shown in dotted lines 111 Fig. 1. By means of this arrangement the moving parts of the machine are enclosed and danger of the operators 'garnients catching in the machine is reduced to a minimum. It should benoted that the adjustment of the bracket 42 also allows the working faces of the tools 46 and 88't0 be brought into alinement (see Figs. 2 and 3),

thus greatly facilitating the presentation of work successively to the tools and'taking care of difference in designorunevenwear ofthetools.

.110 Adjustably mounted upon an ear 7 0' with a pulley 78 connected by means'of a belt 80 with a driving pulley "22-. A curvedslot 82 in the ear or'flange '70 is de scribed upon an arc of a circle whose center is the center-of the "pulley 78. Thecen'ter of this pulley 7 8 is preferably approximately 'vertically above the shaft 12 so that the belt will run evenlyand will not be dis turbed by adjusting of the stitch brush. A

casing 84: which covers thefupper side of the brush 76 is adjustably retained 'inpO- sition bymeans of a clamping nut 86passing through a slot'in said casing; I It will be observed that the angular relation of the shaft 7 aycarry'ing the stitchfcleanin'g brush,

to the shaft carrying the moistening and cleaning brushes greatly facilitates presen tation of work thereto, either before'or after it has been presented to the other brushes, andthe provision for angular adjustment of the same enables the operator to suit his personal requirements and to put the stitch cleaning brush in the position which is most desirable for his own particular use.

If desired, a receptacle 92 for naphtha, or any other cleaning agent, may be mounted upon a bracket 90 attached to the casing 30 so that any cleaning operation which may be needed may be carried out by the simple moistening of the upper and may be effected by the same operator and at the same time, For thesake of illustration, there has been shown in the drawings, a dispensing receptacle 92 of the type shown in Letters Patent No. 1,236,421, granted August 14, 1917, upon an application of F. M. Furber, but it will be obvious that any other suitable receptacle may be substituted therefor.

As hereinbefore stated, the invention is not limited to use for cleaning the uppers and stitches of boots and shoes. Obviously other articles, whether in the form of completedproducts or material which is to be afterwards made up into a completed proclnot, can be cleaned with facility. by the present machine. Owing to the fact that the two tools or members 38, 46 are in very close relationship and present operating surface portions which are substantially in the same plane an article, whether a shoe or something else, may have different portions thereof simultaneously acted upon by the two members, thus saving time, For instance, supposing the article is a shoe or a strip of leather, that article can be moved along while in operative contact with both of the wheels 38, 46 and in such direction that the wheel 46 operates first and then as the article is moved along. the 7 portion which has just been moistened by the wheel 46 is cleaned or dried or polished by the wheel 38. It will therefore be understood that to facilitate operation in the manner described, it is of particular importance that the two operating members shall have their operating surface portions in substantially the same plane and in such proximity to each other as to enable a shoe or other article to be presented to both members for simultaneous operation at different places, one operation. preparing the article for the next operation.

The operation of the machine will be apparent from the'preeeding description and, while I have herein shown and described one particular embodiment of the invention, it will be understood that my invention is not limited to this particular arrangement but that its scope is defined in the appended claims.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is:

1. In a machine for cleaning shoe uppers, in combination, a rotary brush to prepare a shoe upper for cleaning, another rotary brush in close juxtaposition thereto to clean the prepared shoe upper as fast as it leaves the preparing brush and on the same presentation of the shoe, one of said brushes being bodily adjustable to aline the working faces of the brushes for simultaneous operation on a shoe, and drive mechanism to rotate said brushes in any position of relative adjustment.

2. In a machine for cleaning articles, in

combination, a rotary shaft arranged to receive any one of several brushes of various diameters, another rotary shaft to receive a brush and position it in close juxtaposition to a brush on the first shaft so that one of the brushes may progressively prepare an article'and the other will progressively act on the article as fast as it is so prepared, one of said shafts being bodily movable to aline the working faces of the brushes regardless of their relative diameters, and a clamp to hold the movable shaft in adjusted position Intestimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification.

EDWARD ERICKSON. 

